


Seeing Dani

by RosieTarnation



Category: The Haunting of Bly Manor (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Sad, Very Original I Know, yet another fic between the bath scene and Dani leaving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-16
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:55:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27596485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RosieTarnation/pseuds/RosieTarnation
Summary: Dani says it's getting harder to see herself, fine - Jamie can help with that.  Jamie is sure she can get Dani to see herself how Jamie sees her.It's only been a couple of days since Dani nearly flooded the apartment, and she can hear the clock running down, ticking away.  As much as she may want it to, that can't be stopped by anything, even Jamie.
Relationships: Dani Clayton/Jamie
Comments: 2
Kudos: 42





	Seeing Dani

The two wives sat on the couch together, relaxing for a bit after having just finished a long day of work. Well, Dani put in a long day of work. Jamie also had a long day, but it was spent doing some work but mostly keeping an eye on Dani, with a brief field trip during lunch to the shop up the road for a very important errand.

"Hey, let's open that bottle Owen sent us tonight," Jamie said. Owen sent them wine fairly regularly, as he was seriously concerned with the quality of alcohol they could get in America. They made fun, but he also had good taste. 

"Okay, sure," Dani said, giving her a bit of a grin.

"There's something I want to talk about, actually."

Dani turned toward her, nodding once slowly. "Right," she began. “I know about the pictures, Jamie.”

“What pictures?”

Dani smiled softly. “The pictures you’ve been taking of me. I know you’re doing it, you’re not very subtle. Every time I turned my back the past two days, I'd hear that damn wheel clicking. And you left the receipt on the counter in the store, I know you picked them up today. 

Jamie’s cheeks reddened a bit. She thought she'd been stealthy the past two days, sneaking around with a disposable camera.

“I wasn’t going to tell you…” she started, shifting so she faced Dani.

“I get it, it’s a bit…macabre,” Dani said. “But it’s a good idea.”

Jamie smiled a bit now, too. “You think so?”

“Yeah,” Dani said. “And, I get trying to take them all stealthily but I could actually pose for you, if you want.”

Jamie blew right past any opportunity for innuendo with that, which set off a tiny alarm in the back of Dani’s brain.

“Do you want to?” Jamie asked. “Like, do you think that would help?”

“It’s up to you, isn’t it?” Dani asked, a little confused by the question.

“I mean, I guess it is,” Jamie said, frowning now a bit.

“The photos are for you and I get it, I really do, so I’ll take whatever picture you want.”

Jamie was outright frowning now. “The photos are for you.”

“The photos you’ve been taking of me?” Dani asked. “I thought they were, you know,” she said, shifting a bit uncomfortably in her seat. She’d taken time to think about this and come around to it and, sad as it was, she understood. She was glad Jamie would have these, in the end. “For you to remember me by.”

Jamie’s eyebrows shot up at that, her mouth dropped open, she (somehow) got a shade paler.

“What?”

“I know that I scared you the other night,” Dani said, remembering all too well their talk by the bathtub. Things had been tense in the nearly two days since. Jamie was bending over backwards to make things feel normal, to gently remind Dani of who she was and that she was still there, but the cracks were becoming too obvious to ignore. They always knew they were on limited time and now it felt like they were running out. “I get wanting something-.”

“No,” Jamie said, cutting her off in a soft but firm voice. “Dani, they’re for you. You said you were having trouble seeing yourself and I’m going to show you. The photos are for you.”

“Jamie…”

“No,” Jamie said again. She had always loved hearing Dani say her name but that way, how she said it then, softly and painfully and tiredly, it killed Jamie. Sometimes, Dani said her name like an apology, and it made Jamie rail against every wrong thing the universe put on her wife.

Dani looked at her. Jamie had held steadfastly for years to their “one day at a time” rule. Dani had insisted on it in the beginning and Jamie held to it.

But things were different now. The end was creeping in and “one day at a time” only worked if there were more days. At some point – at some point soon – they’d be out.

“Have you seen them?” Jamie asked standing now. 

“No.”

“Let's look, then,” she said, pulling the envelope from her bag and yanking the photos out with force. She showed them to Dani, one by one, feeling her heart break a bit more with each image. “This is you, making just, honestly, Dani, the prettiest arrangement you’ve ever made yesterday at work. That was you, Dani, not _her._ ”

She showed her the next one.

“And this is you yesterday morning, wearing my tiny shoes to take out the bins because yours were all the way in the bedroom and that was too far.”

“Jamie, I-.”

“And this is you misty-eyed watching the evening news because that kid raised all that money for their classmate who was sick,” Jamie said, holding the photo out to her. “You were on this couch, crying, not 24 hours ago because you _felt_ that!”

“Jamie, it’s okay-.”

“ _You_ felt that, not _her_!” Jamie said, feeling all the anger and sadness and fury and heartbreak and terror and all of it finally bubble over. She felt the tears running down her cheeks and knew she wouldn’t stop them, she wouldn’t even try. “You’re still _you_ , Dani! You’re still Dani Clayton, you still watch old films until too late at night, you still insist on eating ketchup with your eggs every morning, you still make the worst cup of tea I’ve ever had in my life! You’re still you!”

Dani looked at her and Jamie realized that for the first time in years, she had no idea what Dani was thinking.

It sent a shiver up her spine.

She’d seen the blank expression on Dani’s face so many times now, the one she made when _she_ was around. But this was different. This was Dani, this was really Dani, thinking something Jamie couldn’t comprehend.

“Jamie,” Dani started, with that same soft tone that, to someone less familiar, could sound just infinitely patient. Jamie knew better – to her it sounded just unbearably tired. It jabbed at her ears and her heart and made her ready to do anything to make it better.

Jamie shook her head, knowing she wasn’t ready for whatever was next, knowing that none of the options for what was next were good.

“Jamie, I know that I love you so much.”

Jamie’s breath hitched. They were being so open and honest now – Jamie wasn’t pretending she wasn’t terrified anymore, and Dani wasn’t pretending that she felt anything anymore.

“I need you to see me how I am right now.” Dani spoke firmly, calmly.

“I do see you,” Jamie insisted. “I _do_ , Dani, that’s what the photos are. If you saw you how I saw you, you’d…”

“What?” Dani asked. “I’d what? Get better? Stay?”

“Please stay,” Jamie begged quietly. She sat back down and dropped the photos, she held Dani’s hands in hers and told herself they felt the same way they always had. “You’re not gone yet. Please stay.”

This was not the first time in Dani’s life someone wanted her to stay when she knew she’d be better if she’d gone, nor was it the first time she’d been viewed as how they wanted to see her, not how she was. This was not going to end the same way.

 _Sure it’s not_. 

That _voice, her_ voice played in Dani’s head, mocking her. The beast in the jungle was getting more powerful. She had spent enough time with Dani to know exactly what elicited the most terror in her, what would cause the most rage.

Dani dropped Jamie’s hands and jerked back, putting distance between herself and her wife. She heard Jamie’s horribly sad little yelp of surprise, of shock, of pain.

“I’m sorry,” she said, looking at the scene before her, at Jamie crying and begging and pleading.

She saw that and she knew it was horrific. She felt nothing.

“I’m so sorry, Jamie,” she repeated. She moved forward again, wrapping Jamie up in a tight hug, desperate to take away some of her pain. 

Dani knew Jamie was never going to see the Viola in her. Jamie was always going to see Dani Clayton, the bubbly, anxious au pair-turned-florist who potentially, if you asked Jamie, was the reason the sun rose and the flowers bloomed. Dani knew Jamie was never, ever going to let that image get tarnished, the image of the real Dani.

And Dani knew Viola knew it, too.

“You have nothing to apologize for,” Jamie said quietly into Dani’s shoulder. “I love you.”

* * *

Dani had spent years thinking about her last words. She had hoped she’d be able to choose them, but also for years never could settle on what they would be.

That night, when she knew her time was absolutely up, when she knew Viola was just toying with her, that she wasn't hiding in the trees anymore, the words just came to her.

She kept a pad and pen in her bedside table for this purpose, though she never admitted that. She always thought her hands would shake, that she would write too much or not enough and agonize over how to leave her deepest feelings to the woman she loved most.

But instead, she knew exactly what to say. The word flowed easily, the final wave of Dani Clayton before she was the Lady in the Lake.

She wrote clearly and quickly:

“Thank you for always seeing me. I have loved you more than everything and I know you loved me the same. You grew a moonflower into an oasis.

Poppins”

**Author's Note:**

> The argument could be made that Dani's entire arc hinges on being seen for who she is, and I think Jamie's denial re: the beast in the jungle puts an interesting spin on that. So, that's what I was thinking about with this fic. I also thought there was some other inciting incident for Viola trying to choke Jamie that night, so I decided its because she figured out she could. Jamie's a giant softie who puts a lot of faith in people and while Dani knows that and would never exploit it, Viola would. 
> 
> Also I had no idea what Dani's letter would possibly say, because I personally don't think that scene is the night of the bath scene. I read it as there's time in between and there's other stuff happening in between and that, plus the 13+ years they had together, would inform the contents of the letter. So this kind of fills in the gaps that I think were there.
> 
> Also also, I deeply miss turning the little wheel on disposable cameras
> 
> As always, fuck trump, fuck white supremacy, fuck fascism, wear a fucking mask!!!!!


End file.
